Paris: The Novel

But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t punish him.
    Could she have been wrong about the other girl? She didn’t think so. Every instinct told her she was right, but she wanted to be certain. By the afternoon she was forming another plan.
    It was evening and the sun was sinking over the Seine when she made her way along to the bridge that led from the Left Bank to the Île de la Cité. Of course, it was possible that he had a girl on the Left Bank, but it would be harder for him to escape detection there. It was far more likely that the other girl was on the northern side of the river. She found a convenient spot on a street corner from which she could observe, and she waited.
    She didn’t have to wait long. He came over the bridge with a jaunty step. So much for studying tonight. She pulled a shawl over her head and followed him at a distance. There were enough people about for her to follow him inconspicuously. Some were standing on the bridge to admire the sunset, and Roland did the same. After that, he continued over tothe Right Bank, and went northward until he turned left into the rue Saint-Honoré. She continued to follow. She saw him go into a tavern. She hesitated. If she went in there, people would turn to look. He’d probably see her, and that would be embarrassing. On the other hand, she wanted to know what he was up to. She stood in the street, wondering what to do.
    He obligingly saved her the trouble by coming out again. There was a girl beside him, with a mass of black hair, just the sort of cheap slut, thought Martine, that she’d imagined. She saw him put his arm around the girl, who reached up and pulled his head down to kiss him on the mouth. Martine quickly turned her head so as not to be seen, but they didn’t even glance in her direction.
    For just a moment, she felt a cold shock that he’d betrayed her. But it was followed by a sense of satisfaction. She’d been right. Her senses and her instincts hadn’t let her down. It was time to complete her revenge.
    That evening, finding a moment when the kitchen was empty, she stole in and removed a long kitchen knife that was seldom used. Then, while her uncle was in his counting house, she entered the empty parlor, where there was a large oak table, and spent several minutes stooped over it, apparently examining the grain of the wood.

    The following morning after breakfast, her uncle went out to the Grève market. The cook and the two other servants were in the kitchen.
    Martine stepped into the parlor. She knew exactly what she had to do. She knew it was going to be painful. But she’d worked it out carefully, tried everything out to make sure that it would work as planned. As she took a deep breath and prepared herself, her whole face was screwed up in anticipation of the pain. If it hadn’t been needed for her revenge, she couldn’t have gone through with it.
    So now, involuntarily crossing herself, she took careful aim, twisted her head so that she shouldn’t break her nose, and let herself fall, hard, against the edge of the big oak table in the middle of the room.
    She didn’t need to fake her howl of pain. The servants came running.
    “I tripped,” she wailed. She saw drops of blood on the floor. She hadn’t meant to break the skin, and hoped it wouldn’t leave a scar. But the main thing was that already, she could feel a huge, throbbing pain around her left eye.
    While the younger servant girl ran to fetch Martine’s uncle home fromthe market, the cook, a small, vigorous woman, took charge. The cut over the eye wasn’t bad. The cook bathed it, held a wad of cloth over it, and stanched the bleeding. Then she put grease on the cut and wrapped a bandage round Martine’s head. A cold compress helped the swelling.
    “But you’re going to have a big, shiny black eye,” the cook informed her cheerfully.
    By the time her uncle arrived at the house, Martine was quite composed, sitting in the kitchen and taking a little broth. Her face was swelling up nicely. Once he was satisfied that his niece was neither badly injured nor disfigured, her uncle returned to the market, and Martine told the servants that she was going to rest in her room and would come down again at midday.
    Everything was going exactly according to plan.
    She waited in her room for a while, until there was no one out in the yard. Then, slipping the long knife she’d stolen into her belt and concealing it under her gown, she slipped unseen out of the back gate